


Music, When Soft Voices Die

by cedarbranch



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarbranch/pseuds/cedarbranch
Summary: Hermann learns to play the piano when he is eight years old.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler & Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	Music, When Soft Voices Die

**Author's Note:**

> greetings mothers and fuckers of the jury, looks like i'm posting again
> 
> (title from the poem by percy bysshe shelley)

Hermann learns to play the piano when he is eight years old. Once Karla starts taking lessons, it’s inevitable; Hermann begs his parents for months before they finally relent and allow him to begin learning as well. From then on, he spends his afternoons bent over the keys, plunking out Ode to Joy and Claire de Lune. 

The music is calming. It’s mathematical, after all—fifths and thirds and whatnot—but in a way that doesn’t demand any grand solutions. It expects nothing of him. All the keys are laid out in plain sight, and if he changes all the notes, a major chord still resolves in the same pleasantly predictable fashion. 

But there’s something more to it, too, something he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s a special kind of feeling, to play. To create sound where there was silence. To bring to life to the notes of composers long dead. It gets him through primary school, then secondary, then part of his university education before he finally becomes too busy to practice. He often thinks of returning to it as the years go on. 

But then, of course, comes the end of the world.

***

Newton's side of the lab can hardly be called a lab anymore. It's more of a lived-in space, used interchangeably for research, eating, sleeping, arguing, and the occasional three-AM soliloquy. It's the interior of his mind made physical, cluttered with kaiju bits and piles of notes.

And instruments, apparently, because at this point, how could it get any worse?

Hermann's mentally balancing a dozen different variables when a major chord interrupts him and shatters his focus. He turns around to see Newton sprawled over the lab couch, an electric guitar in his lap. It must be new; Hermann hasn't seen it before. 

Newton's lost in thought, eyes focused somewhere in the distance. His fingers climb up the frets in a lazy scale. Hermann watches them move from string to string with a practiced precision. It’s… distracting. Hermann quickly turns back to his chalkboard. 

“Do you mind?” he says. 

Newton gives him the finger, still strumming with his other hand. 

“I'm trying to concentrate,” says Hermann.

“So am I,” says Newton. “Just give me a minute, dude. It helps me think.”

Hermann sighs. There are innumerable studies proving that music impairs concentration, but does Newton ever listen to hard data? No, of course he doesn't. If it doesn't have teeth and claws, it's not worth his time. 

Hermann turns back to his chalkboard. In the background, stray notes assemble into a melody. He vaguely recognizes the tune; Newton’s likely blasted the same song from his phone on one occasion or another.

Hermann can’t fathom what goes on in that mind of his.

***

Unfortunately, as time wears on, the guitar becomes a permanent fixture within the lab. Newton likes to play whenever he’s lost in thought, which is often. By now, Hermann can recognize the melodies to several songs by the Flaming Lips, the Mountain Goats, and Newton’s old band from university. The sound becomes familiar enough that he can almost tune it out. 

Which is precisely why it’s so jarring when one day, the music that comes from somewhere behind him is not that of a guitar, but a piano. 

Hermann glances over his shoulder. Newton is sitting on the lab couch—why they even have a couch, Hermann will never be able to explain—and staring into space. There’s an electric keyboard in his lap. Hermann rolls his eyes instinctively and turns back to his equations. 

Newton starts to play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. This might be tolerable, except for the fact that he only seems to know the introduction, and plays it several times in a row. After he starts up again for the fifth time, Hermann grits his teeth. “Would you keep it down?” he says, gripping his chalk too tightly. 

“What, you got something against Bach? Funny, I thought he’d be to your taste,” Newton says, banging on a few low keys and going silent. Hermann bites back a sigh and turns around. Sure enough, Newton is glaring at him, arms crossed. He’s looking for an argument. He’s got to be. He’s been in a foul mood ever since the latest round of funding cuts last week. 

“If you’re searching for a way to vent your frustrations, do it somewhere else,” Hermann snaps. “I can’t think through that racket.” 

“It’s not a _racket_ , Hermann, it’s music, you should try listening to it sometime. Or playing! It’s relaxing. Maybe then you wouldn’t want to bite my head off all the time.”

 _I play just as well as you, if not better,_ Hermann wants to snap, but that would be wrong. He doesn’t play anymore. Not since the apocalypse came, and he doesn’t need reminding. 

“Endlessly repeating the background noise of your own mind through that machine is hardly music,” he says. “If you were going to play something worthwhile, perhaps we could come to some sort of agreement, but—”

“Hold on, ‘that machine?’ It’s called a piano, Hermann.”

“That is not a piano,” Hermann says shortly. “That is a keyboard. There is a difference.”

Newton laughs out loud. “Oh my God,” he says, shaking his head in what would look like wonder if it weren’t so deeply sarcastic. “You really are one of those people, aren’t you? Just call a spade a spade, dude, it’s a fucking piano, who cares if it’s electric.” His voice drips with scorn. 

Someday, Hermann is going to pin him to a wall, find out exactly how much it takes to wipe that look off his face, and use it to his advantage for the rest of time. 

Hermann really shouldn’t respond. It’s exactly what Newton wants—an excuse to shout, to tear into him because what else is left, really, but the hollowed-out shell of the PPDC and their dwindling chances of surviving this war. 

But Newton isn’t the only one struggling to keep his frustrations under control. He’s not the one who knows the weight of a _proper_ set of keys beneath his fingers. He’s not the one who sat in front of an instrument for years because as long as he was playing, he could rest, he could take some of the weight off his leg and his heart in turn. And he certainly isn’t the one who gave up that precious relief when the world began to fall apart. Hermann had sacrificed his time for the greater good. But Newton’s still here, clinging to his hobbies as if regurgitating Bach is the most important thing he could be doing with his inexplicably genius brain. It’s not _fair._

To the rest of the world, that is. There are people depending on Newton. On them both. 

Hermann’s chalk snaps between his fingers. 

“That thing has no soul,” he spits before he can think twice of it. “If you wish to waste your time and put us even further off track, then you’re certainly doing your job. However, if we are continuing this attempt at survival, then I’d suggest you do some work of your own and stop putting me off mine.”

Newton slams his hands down on the lowest keys and stands up. A very small part of Hermann relishes in it. “Hey, I don’t criticize you when you’re over there muttering math problems under your breath half the time!” Newton snarls. “You think that makes it any easier for me, huh? But I adapted, didn’t I? You do you, man, whatever keeps you focused, just don’t fucking come at me for doing the same!”

Arguing with Newton is, of course, wildly unproductive, but Hermann finds himself sucked in all the same. He can’t resist. He can never resist Newton. 

So he lets the two of them shout until all the empty space in the room is filled, and the echoes of piano keys are drowned from his mind.

***

When the averted-apocalypse celebrations start to wind down, they return to the lab. It’s a compulsion, an autopilot sort of move—of course they’d return to the lab. It’s where they’ve lived for the past ten years. All their lives, really, if they’re both honest.

Silence hangs heavy over the chalkboards and tanks. Hermann doesn’t know where to look. Anywhere but Newton. 

“What do you think’s gonna happen to this place?” Newton finally asks. 

“I can’t say,” says Hermann. 

“There’s no use for it anymore,” Newton says distantly. “I mean, the science of it all, sure, we’ll all be writing about this for the rest of our lives. But the physical stuff, this stuff,” he knocks his knuckles against the table, “the world doesn’t need it anymore.”

“You may be right,” says Hermann. His responses feel hollow. He doesn’t know what’s to come—he can make predictions, certainly, but he isn’t sure he wants to. He shouldn’t be thinking of this, not when they’ve just scraped through the apocalypse, but there’s an odd feeling of apprehension in the air. He can’t shake it. 

What do you do when your entire life is built around a single goal, and then that goal is met?

What do you do when you spend ten years orbiting a black hole, and even after it pulls you past the event horizon, you live to see it spit you back out again?

What is he supposed to do now that Newton is no longer obligated to stay by his side?

There was so much feeling in the drift: a lifetime’s worth of words left unsaid, enough to knock him off his feet. Hermann _felt_ things, things that didn’t come from him—at least, he doesn’t think they did. He hasn’t had time to process it all until now. But even once he lets it creep from the back of his mind to the front, he still can’t quite conceptualize it.

Newton retreats to his side of the lab. For a moment, Hermann’s heart sinks, but then he comes back again, this time carrying his keyboard. He glances at Hermann, daring him to protest as he sits down on the lab couch and plugs it into the closest outlet. 

Newton plays a delicate major chord and looks directly at Hermann. “‘That thing has no soul,’” he quotes, raising his eyebrows. “You absolute bastard. I can’t believe you’ve played this entire time.”

That’s what he took from the drift. 

Of course.

Hermann isn’t sure if he’s more exasperated or relieved to see that, after all this, Newton is still exactly as frustrating as he’s always been.

“No, I haven’t,” Hermann says.

“You play the piano,” Newton says, running through a scale. “Since childhood, if I recall correctly. And this whole time you’ve been yelling at me for playing _your_ instrument.” The corners of his mouth twitch. Hermann heaves a sigh, and Newton breaks into an outright grin.

“I played, Newton, past tense, and it was never an electric keyboard, so I’ll thank you not to refer to that thing as ‘my—’”

“Bullshit,” Newton interrupts. “It’s about the person playing, not the keys. That’s where the soul comes from. You and me, keyboard or piano, it doesn’t fucking matter, we’re the same.”

Hermann bristles. “There is a noticeable difference in sound quality between—”

“Oh, now you have opinions on music, do you? Go on then, prove it.” Newton stands up and presents the keyboard to him with both hands. 

“Newton,” Hermann says, uncertain. “I haven’t played in years, I—”

“Just try it. Please,” Newton says, uncharacteristically soft. Hermann’s breath catches in his throat.

He takes the keyboard and sits down, adjusting it in his lap. When he presses an experimental key, it flattens down too easily. The smooth plastic feels alien against his fingertips. It’s an odd angle to play from, with the keyboard directly in his lap instead of several inches away, but in another life, from another set of memories, it feels only natural. Half of him knows where to go. 

Newton sits down next to him. 

Hermann closes his eyes, relaxes into the strange familiarity of it all, and plays.

It’s a song one of them learned long ago, soft, gentle, like a morning rain falling over the roof. Hermann’s rusty; his fingers don’t go where he wants them to go, and he hits a couple of wrong notes, but that’s all right. It isn’t meant to sound perfect. It’s just a test. This is all just a hypothesis. 

He wants to say it would sound better if he were playing on the piano back at his childhood home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There, the sound would ring out and linger a little longer. 

But if he were at home, he wouldn’t feel the way Newton’s breath falls into sync with the tempo. 

Maybe he doesn’t need the sound to linger. There’s no stifling silence to escape from, now, only comfortable quietude. Perhaps this way is just as good, with the sound flowing from him to the keys and then to Newton, carrying some unspoken feeling with it. It resonates just as deeply as it ever did. 

He can feel Newton’s heartbeat against his shoulder.

“Hermann,” Newton says.

Hermann looks up at him. The air goes still. He feels fixed in place by Newton’s gaze. Everything seems to fade out except the green of his eyes, wide and wonderstruck, echoing the feeling Hermann had sensed in the drift but had been too scared to fall into. 

He’s falling into it now. 

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Newton whispers.

Hermann can’t say which one of them moves first, but Newton’s fingers curl against the back of his neck, and Hermann can scarcely breathe for the gentle press of Newton’s lips against his own. He’s almost hesitant about it, the last thing Hermann would ever expect him to be. The last thing he _needs_ to be. Hermann pulls him in closer, and Newton lets out a surprised little huff before Hermann is kissing him again, and he’s rather too distracted to pay attention to anything but the warmth of Newton’s mouth and the current running between them every place they touch.

“So what’s the verdict?” Newt says breathlessly. “Keyboard work okay for you?”

“I hardly think it matters,” Hermann murmurs into the corner of his mouth. Newt shivers. 

“Okay, yeah, that’s fair,” he says, his voice a little strained. “But I—I still can’t believe you yelled at me because you were bitter I still had hobbies, you grumpy old man.”

“Shut up,” says Hermann. 

For once, Newton is all too eager to comply.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@kscientific](https://kscientific.tumblr.com)! join the pacific rim discord server!


End file.
